Heavy! Apple announced that it would abandon the electric car project, the 2,000-strong team was disbanded, and Musk once knelt down and begged Apple to buy Tesla in contempt.
Just now, Apple announced that it will cancel the research and development of the "Titan" project (electric car), and the R&D team of 2,000 people will be disbanded, transferred to the artificial intelligence R&D department in batches, or be laid off.
According to Bloomberg, Apple revealed in an internal memo sent to 2,000 employees that it was abandoning its electric vehicle research and development program, an announcement that has not yet been made public, but it is enough to trigger a market **.
The decision was allegedly made by Apple's chief operating officer, Jeff Williams, and Kevin Lynch, vice president in charge of the Titan project.
In the memo, they wrote that the "Titan" project will gradually come to an end, and many employees of the automotive team will be transferred to the artificial intelligence department under the leadership of John Giannandrea, and the employees will focus on the artificial intelligence project, which is becoming more and more important for the company.
Apple announced in 2014 that it would invest billions of dollars in the development of electric vehicles with self-driving capabilities, and named it the "Titan" project, which is said to have 5,000 R&D personnel at its peak, Apple said it would develop a fully autonomous electric car with a luxury sedan interior and voice navigation capabilities.
This also makes the outside world look forward to the Apple car, and many netizens have imagined the **and** of Apple's electric car on the Internet, and every time it appears, it has set off a boom on the Internet.
However, the Titan project was almost in trouble from the start, and Apple did not seem to understand how to develop and build electric vehicles, and changed the leadership team and strategy of the Titan project several times.
Trams are no longer sought after.
There is no market for Apple cars.
I still remember that when Tesla was in trouble in 2018, Musk once approached Apple CEO Tim Cook and hoped that he would buy Tesla, but was ruthlessly refused. In the end, Musk ran out of ammunition, through pre-sale, 1000 US dollars per person to order the model 3 that was still in the concept, 400,000 people ordered in a short period of time, Musk also obtained 400 million US dollars of cash flow at once, survived the most difficult moment, model 3 as soon as it was listed, Tesla immediately turned over, Musk not only no longer had to ask for acquisition, but also became the richest man in the world in one fell swoop.
Apple's electric vehicles have always been thunderous and rainy, and there has been no news in the market where the demand for electric vehicles has been great in the past few years. Today, Tesla, an electric car in the United States, occupies most of the market and is almost saturated, and Tesla has repeatedly announced price cuts, leaving other car companies with no way back.
In this case, even GM and Ford have announced that they will reduce or abandon the production of all-electric vehicles, and Apple has said that it will not make a profit if its electric cars are sold for only $100,000. In comparison, Tesla's Cybertruck is also $100,000, so if so, which one would you choose?
In this case, the market is not optimistic about Apple's electric vehicle development. Sure enough, after Apple announced that it was abandoning electric vehicles, Apple's stock price immediately fell by about 12%, to 183$37.
Musk also responded, with a post on X with a saluting emoji and a cigarette.
What do you think this means?